In 1998 I was on the way back to my hotel from London’s Piccadilly Circus when I met a charming woman on the Underground. She was a retired Air Force intelligence officer who had lived all over the world during her career. She spoke several languages and was living in Atlanta where she was part of an expatriate group that convened once per month for cultural gatherings that reflected the international experience of its members. To qualify for membership one had to be fluent in at least two languages and have been an expatriate for at least two consecutive years.
After we exchanged farewells, two distinct feelings swept over me: hope and despair. Hope, because I had met a living role model for the life I had been craving but couldn't fathom how to create - aligning earning power with passion as a geographically unencumbered yet spiritually grounded being. Despair, because I felt stuck in my life situation.
Later, memories of our conversation inspired me to draw up a pact with myself: I committed that my time in London would be more than a week-long getaway. My magical experience in England would be the beginning of the authentic life I wanted. And I would use it back home as a metaphor to conjure the invisible world of thought energy into tangible expression. I named it “The London Life Expansion Pact.”
I read my Pact every day for six months. Two years later, I stumbled across it and was astounded by how dramatically my life had changed. I had resigned my full-time job to travel around the world, launched a freelance journalism career with a regular column in Connecticut’s largest newspaper, and begun the draft of what would become my third book.
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Life will only change when you
become more committed to your dreams
than you are to your comfort zone.
Billy Cox
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